The Effects of Charges of Corruption on Voting Behavior in Congressional Elections

Peters, John G.; Welch, Susan

doi:10.2307/1958151

Cited by 292 publications

(205 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…We can add to this account much that might seem only to add to the idiosyncrasies of the historical record (see Nice 1983;Meier and Holbrook 1992;Johnston 1983;Peters and Welch 1980). Our point, however, is that choices rational in one context need not be in another context.…”

Section: The Changing Universe Of Political Corruptionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Political Corruption and Presidential Elections, 1929-1992

Fackler¹,

Lin²

1995

The Journal of Politics

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We develop an aggregate model of the presidential vote based on the appropriation of political as well as economic information by a rational voter. We argue that, depending upon historical context, information about political corruption is relevant to individual, and hence aggregate, vote choice. In preindustrial, community-oriented machine politics, the rational voter exchanged votes for particularistic benefits. As the social and political perspective shifted to a universalistic standard, information about corruption has become for him or her one of the criteria by which to evaluate the performance of the incumbent party. By including information about corruption alongside information about the economy, our model significantly improves upon conventional economic voting models in explaining post-New Deal presidential election outcomes.

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Section: The Changing Universe Of Political Corruptionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Political Corruption and Presidential Elections, 1929-1992

Fackler¹,

Lin²

1995

The Journal of Politics

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“…Voters also face a tradeoff, between honest candidates with less-preferred policy preferences and corrupt candidates that are politically closer. Unlike in Peters and Welch (1980), however, this trade-off does not arise because the set of candidates is limited but because the propensity to engage in corruption is correlated with a candidate's policy preferences. Contrary to models of special interest groups, bribes are not aimed here at influencing policy decisions but are used for mere personal greed.…”

Section: Relations With Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hold Your Nose and Vote: Why Do Some Democracies tolerate Corruption?

Pani

2009

IMF Working Papers

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This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate. This paper analyses why corruption can persist for long periods in a democracy and inquires whether this can result from a well-informed rational choice of the citizens. By applying a citizen-candidate model of representative democracy, the paper analyzes how corruption distorts the allocation of resources between public and private expenditure, altering the policy preferences of elected and nonelected citizens in opposite directions. The result is a reduction in real public expenditure and, if the median voter's demand for public goods is sufficiently elastic, a tax reduction. In this case, some citizens can indirectly benefit from corruption. The paper shows that, under this condition, if the citizens anticipate a shift in policy preferences in favor of higher public expenditure, they may support institutional arrangements that favor corruption (such as a weak enforcement of the law) in order to alter future policy decisions in their favor. This result complements the findings of other studies that have attributed the persistence of corruption in a democracy to some failure on the part of the voters or the electoral system. It also bears implications for developing effective anticorruption strategies and for redefining the role that can be played by the international community. JEL Classification Numbers: D72; H20; H41; H50; K40; K42.

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“…The primary reason for an incumbent (who obviously won the previous election) to believe he or she will be defeated is probably alleged corruption of some kind. Thus, the study by Peters and Welch (1980) should provide sufficient reason to think that I, is essentially exogenous to v,. In the six election years from 1968 to 1978, Peters and Welch find only 80 cases of alleged corruption among incumbents (0.03 of all races).…”

Section: Exogeneity Of the Decision To Runmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating Incumbency Advantage without Bias

Gelman¹,

King²

1990

American Journal of Political Science

519

331

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In this paper we prove theoretically and demonstrate empirically that all existing measures of incumbency advantage in the congressional elections literature are biased or inconsistent. We then provide an unbiased estimator based on a very simple linear regression model. We apply this new method to congressional elections since 1900, providing the first evidence of a positive incumbency advantage in the first half of the century.

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The Effects of Charges of Corruption on Voting Behavior in Congressional Elections

Cited by 292 publications

References 11 publications

Political Corruption and Presidential Elections, 1929-1992

Political Corruption and Presidential Elections, 1929-1992

Hold Your Nose and Vote: Why Do Some Democracies tolerate Corruption?

Estimating Incumbency Advantage without Bias

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